World Cup 2022

[Lianachan]

So, the 2022 FIFA World Cup will be starting in Qatar in a couple of weeks. As it's courting much controversy for various reasons, is anybody here going to be following it? With sufficient interest for a thread here to be maintained?

[Arneb]

I am still on the fence over this. Germany's results will certainly beincluded in The Count (T.M.), which may not be good news for The Count given Germany's recent weak performances, but I am not yet at all sure if I can bear the shitshow. I think it's resaonable that we put everything we observe about this shameful event into this thread, sporty, social or otherwise.

[Lianachan]

That sounds like a good idea. Personally I am pleased that the World Cup is raising the profile of various issues with the host nation on a global stage, although I do not expect any change to come of it.

[Lianachan]

England’s group is a shit-show from a Scottish perspective, filled as it is with countries which would be difficult to support under almost any circumstance other than they happen to be playing England.

England
Iran
USA
Wales

[Arneb]

Well, here's to the tune, 'the enemy of my enemy...'

[Мастер]

I am not looking forward to transiting Doha (twice) during the tournament.

[Heid the Ba]

That sounds like a good idea. Personally I am pleased that the World Cup is raising the profile of various issues with the host nation on a global stage, although I do not expect any change to come of it.

Exactly.

[Richard A]

Lianachan, you're not even willing to support Murrca? OK, maybe not, but perhaps some Celtic solidarity with Wales.

Anyway, times like this are when I wake up on things sporty, so expect some posts from me. In our home, the approach is this. We start off with a trio of England, Wales and Germany. If they're playing anyone other than the other two, we support them. England v Germany, we support England, but expect to lose. Same with Wales v Germany. England v Wales, we support England. (The line for England v Wales is support Wales if it's rugby and England if it's football.)

But yes, it is good to see the issues of Qatar highlighted. BBC Radio 4's "Thought For The Day" on Monday was given by a Welsh minister, Rev. Roy Jenkins. He was talking about the new Welsh national anthem, Yma O Hyd and the English translation of its refrain, "Despite everything and everyone, we're still here". He said that when the stadium resounds to this, we should hear the voice of the migrant workers in Qatar replying, "We are still here too."

[Arneb]

Judging from our smashing performance this week (1 - 0 against football giants Oman), don't expect to lose against Germany, really. However, I doubt the problem will come up, since I expect our boys to be home by the Second Sunday of Advent.

[Lianachan]

Lianachan, you're not even willing to support Murrca? OK, maybe not, but perhaps some Celtic solidarity with Wales.

I’ll be supporting the merkins in two of their group games for sure..... and don’t get me started on the myth of celiticness.

I’ll put the fixtures in this thread, and as I’ve done for previous tournaments I’ll put the team I’d like to win in bold and the team I think will win in italics.

Anyway, it starts tomorrow with a fascinating match between two of football’s great superpowers. Such spectacle!

Nov 20th

Qatar v Ecuador (a 0-0 or 1-1 draw for me)

[Lianachan]

Nov 21st

England v Iran

Senegal v Netherlands

USA v Wales (a draw)

[Richard A]

Ah, now Lianachan and I are at least agreed on who we want to win tomorrow's match. I don't know enough about either team's record to predict the outcome, but I will definitely be routing for Ecuador. On two counts - a) Qatar losing because of what we've already discussed, and b) a lot of the cleaners at my uni are from Ecuador. (The other large contingent are from Colombia, which hasn't qualified.)

[Lianachan]

Cool! Well, if we're showing our working then a) yes indeed, fuck Qatar, b) Ecuador has some great archaeology (Incan stuff) and c) I'm generally predisposed to support South American teams anyway.

[Мастер]

Did anyone catch the speech the FIFA guy gave?

[Arneb]

They showed a few highlights on the news, and I couldn't help myself and switched over to Snooker.

[Lianachan]

I saw that such a thing had happened, but didn’t see the speech or bother going to read anything about it. Should I?

[Richard A]

They showed a few highlights on the news, and I couldn't help myself and switched over to Snooker.

The snooker? That's extreme - I would have either switched to something else entirely or just switched off.

His statement combined what is now the standard non-Western line - "who is the West, with its history of colonialism, to judge other parts of the world?" - with straight propaganda: migrant workers in Qatar earn wages far above what they can earn at home, when they're not able to work in Europe at all. And then it did go into the bizarre, talking about his own experience of being bullied - not entirely sure what that had to do with the matter in hand.

Oh, and trivia fact no one talks about. Although Britain, France, Spain and Portugal did indeed engage in slave trading, so did the peoples of what are now the Gulf states.

[Richard A]

This may be more worth watching, although equally, it may not say anything we didn't already know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO68kGAKYDw

[Arneb]

The snooker? That's extreme

The absence of loud noise (human or otherwise) most of the time, the meditative quality, the concentration, the impeccable manners, the sub-surface drama and the sheer precision is what I like about it. And yes, the slow pace, too. None of which was present in Infantino's speech, as far as I read and heard about it. To see powerful, criminally corrupt assholes waxing about being the victim of horrid injustice has a certain entertainment value, but by Jove, we've seen too much of that kind of thing already in the past years.

[Lianachan]

Fun fact - homosexual activity was illegal in England when they hosted the World Cup.

[Arneb]

When we hosted the Cup in Germany for the first time in 1974, the infamous § 175 StGB had already had most of its teeth removed by the reforms of 1969 und 1973. At that time, it retained provisions against homosexual prostitution, exploiting a relationship of dependency, and it contained a higher age of consent (18 instead of 14) for homosexual acts than for heterosexual ones. By the second time, in 2006, the law seemed like ancient history, but wasn't (it was finally guttered when the Bundestag regulated sexual acts with minors in 1994).

Much as I detest FIFA and its boss, Infantino has a point saying The West (T.M.) shouldn't carry its nose too high re. the regulation of consenting adults' sex lives (for the believers among us, Humane Vitae is still the moral standard for 1.4 billion Catholics on this world), the regular occurrence of expolitative labor contracts (just ask Romanian truck drivers) and women's rights. As a nice illustration, Section 1356 of the German Civil Code stipulated, between 1957 and 1977 (!), that within marriage, the wife was allowed to work as long is it did not "interfere with her marital and household obligations"; the husband had the right to terminate her work contract unilaterally to make her take these obligations seriously. And until 25 years ago this May, rape within marriage wasn't a crime in Germany. It wasn't even a thing, legally.

So yeah, the point of not watching the World Cup is FIFA's greed and unabashed corruption much more than Qatar's morals. If I, as your plain vanilla moderate-lefty, sandal-waring tree hugger only recognize as The World those societies that conform to my standards, The World becomes small indeed. Even if I am generous and just use the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

[Arneb]

OK, I already lowered my nose. Qatar 0 - 1 Equador in the fourth minute. Good.

ETA. Aw shucks VAR time.

ETA. And goal annulled. Offside? How was that an offside goal?

ETA: OK, that was higher mathematics. If it weren't the machine that did it, I'd say excellent catch, ref.

[Arneb]

Good golly, that goalie. Was he born in England?
0 - 1, by a very stupidly conceded penalty.

[Arneb]

Crossball, header, 0-2. Too easy.

[Arneb]

Nice to know that the murderous sliding tackle is still current in modern 2022 football. Never gets old, that one.